Long Beach planners approve improvements to Chittick Field athletic facilities

LONG BEACH - Although plans for a Kroc Center were previously abandoned, Long Beach will move forward with improvements to the athletic facilities at Chittick Field as early as October, city officials said.

The Long Beach Planning Commission approved the environmental impact report Thursday, and work will likely begin by Oct. 15 on the $4.34 million project, said Michael Conway, director of Public Works. He said the city wants to start before the rainy season, with completion slated for 2013.

Located at 1900 Walnut Ave., the 19-acre site will include two youth soccer fields, one adult soccer field, and a regulation football field surrounded by a 400-meter all-weather track with facilities for javelin, pole vault, shot put, discus, long jump and triple jump.

A 134-space parking lot and restrooms will be available and accessed from Walnut Avenue.

"I played softball back when it was called Hamilton Bowl and it was very dusty," she said. "This is going to be a nice asset for all of the city and the people in the area."

Conway said funding for the project is coming from the county and is expected later this month or by early September.

The City Council passed a resolution in August 2011 requesting that Los Angeles County supervisors transfer $4.34 million in city-assigned park grant money to fund the project.

Originally, the site was to be home of a $140 million Ray and Joan Kroc Community Corps Center that was to be mostly paid for by a gift to the Salvation Army from the late Joan Kroc, wife of former McDonald's chief executive officer Ray Kroc.

As envisioned, the community center was to be about 180,000 square feet, with an education and community building, a gymnasium with four basketball courts, an amphitheater, an Olympic-size pool and two other pools with slides and water spouts and a soccer field.

However, after four years of delay, the Salvation Army's Western Territorial Headquarters announced that it was pulling the plug on the Kroc Center after it was only able to raise a little more than half of the $15 million needed to kick-start the gift.

"It was a very ambitious project, it was well-intentioned," said Jill Griffith, advance planning officer. "At this point, the city is interested in developing some improvements that are on a much more modest scale."

One concern the Planning Commission had was the possibility of losing the fields during rainy seasons, as Chittick Field also functions as a detention basin for the Los Angeles County Flood Control District.

"The basin remains intact, so the detention capacity remains the same," Conway said. "We do intend to have low-flow runoff captured within a contained system rather than in open trenches so we would be able transport that water with no impact to the surface."

Becky Blair, chairwoman of the Planning Commission, said it's disappointing not having the Kroc Center.

"I think that there were a lot of people that were hopeful and certainly the kids were depending on this, too," she said. "This is now a turnaround and we're going forward with the city and helping make this happen," she said. "I think this is positive, not ending but maybe another transition that maybe something bigger will come back in the future."

Blair also added that any possible projects that would be positive for Long Beach would not be overlooked.